Distance Learning Dan Meester, RCS

Distance Learning

By Dan Meester, High School Principal

“Normal” is the wrong word, but we have all become more used to the global pandemic’s impact on our lives over the past four months. Back in March, however, the changes in our daily routines were coming fast and furious—forcing businesses, organizations, and families to quickly rethink their day-to-day activities and operations. K-12 schools were among the agencies that needed to adapt to a landscape that was suddenly different, and those adaptations went beyond teaching and learning to include transportation, food service, counseling services, end-of-year ceremonies, college admissions, and more. Here in Gallup, Rehoboth Christian School stood out in its creativity and quick response to ensure its students and their families continued to receive the education they deserved.

United by a strong sense of mission and a set of common beliefs, the faculty, staff, and administration at Rehoboth knew that a few key principles would need to guide their response to the pandemic. Students would need to be able to continue to receive a high-quality academic education, and the transformative Christian aspect of that education would have to shine through. The rest was details, and so the staff went to work over the week of Spring Break to ensure that the Rehoboth student body could take on the fourth quarter with confidence.

In this age of technology, the easy answer for many schools was to shift to online learning. Rehoboth enrolls students from an area covering 3,000 square miles, much of it on Navajo Nation lands, and somewhere between 30%-40% of the school’s families have either limited internet access or no ability to connect to the web. Combine these accessibility issues with the fact that many families had no computer at home, and the technology puzzle got even more complicated.

To begin, the school leveraged its significant number of on-campus laptops and was able to provide devices to families who needed them for the duration of the school year. Students and parents signed user agreements as they picked up their devices, promising to return them in the same condition they received them. But just having a laptop doesn’t provide internet access, so teachers also created files of their lessons and assignments, including videos of particular teaching points, directions for activities, and much more. Those files were then copied to USB thumb drives and sent out to students along with hard copies of their assignments in case it was easier for students to complete them by hand. Using the normal afternoon bus routes, Rehoboth bus drivers brought these materials to families who needed them, collecting completed work and USB drives every two weeks and replacing them with new ones.

But school isn’t just about academic learning. The relationships and mentoring opportunities that grow between teachers and students are a key part of the mental and emotional health of young people as they form the identities, self-images, and value systems that will impact them for the rest of their lives. With face to face contact suddenly gone, the Rehoboth faculty became creative, frequent communicators in other ways. For students with reliable internet, large group meetings through Zoom or Google Hangouts became weekly rituals; but the ones without that same technology in their homes could not be left behind. Instead, teacher phone calls and text messages served as means to keep alive the deep connections that Rehoboth families appreciate

so much about the school. Teachers charted the date and time of their calls to students to ensure that everyone was getting attention and that no young people would slip through the cracks during their physical separation.

Weekly online staff meetings served as touchpoints for the faculty at each Rehoboth building (Elementary, Middle, and High School). Teachers could keep each other informed about students who were struggling or had challenging circumstances, which led to shared prayer and brainstorming about how to best meet the needs of these families. Likewise, the meetings allowed space for teachers to share their joys and challenges with each other, lift up and encourage their colleagues, and provide ideas for lessons and activities being taken out of their normal classroom context.

And while all of this was going on, the Rehoboth’s Food Service Department managed to prepare and serve 200+ meals each day to anyone in the local community who stopped by for breakfast or lunch, whether they attended Rehoboth or not. Hot, nutritious food awaited the drivers who lined up at the curb for their very own takeaway service—often including extra bags of fruit or vegetables for the whole family. The school also installed a fresh water filling station for families without running water to ease the distance people would have to drive to supply their homes and livestock. Rehoboth also became the headquarters for relief efforts in the Eastern Agency of the Navajo Nation— gathering and distributing daily supplies with the help of the Navajo Nation Christian Response Team and a small army of faithful volunteers.

What had once been “just” a school had become so much more—not least of all, a source of hope and stability in the lives of its students and their families. But did it work? What were the results of all this effort? Did the students still learn? At the close of the school year, Rehoboth administrators analyzed the academic performance of the students from 3rd quarter to 4th quarter and looked at the same data for the same students last year. By all measures, both in raw numbers and percentages, students performed better during the pandemic. The school did note, however, that for the smaller percentage of students who did not do well, they struggled significantly more than usual—often affected by the trauma of loss of family members to COVID-19 or the increased demands of caring for grandparents and taking on a bulk of the household chores. Those students were offered small group mentorship in summer school classes, with no more than four children assigned to one teacher so that they would not fall behind in preparation for next year.

And as Rehoboth looks toward the next school year, the school will use the knowledge gained during its quick response to the pandemic. The circumstances for every student and every family aren’t the same, so a one-size-fitsall solution is impractical for any real chance of success. Rehoboth administrators are waiting for definitive school guidance from the Governor’s office and the Navajo Nation, but in the meantime plans are being developed for food, transportation, facilities, schedules, athletics, performing arts, teaching, and learning. Scenarios are being created for full distance learning, full on-campus learning, or a hybrid of both.

Early in the pandemic, Rehoboth Christian School’s principles of academic quality and transformative Christian education guided their response to this new normal in which we find ourselves. For the fall, the personal safety of students, families, and staff is added to those core principles. The school will be ready with masks, social distancing, hand washing stations, sanitization protocols, daily health screening, and a host of other factors that can be employed to make sure that Rehoboth continues to deliver what families expect when they enroll—even if that means working with families who might not feel comfortable sending their children to school yet come August.

A mindset of flexibility and adaptability. A deep care for both its staff and its constituents. A strong commitment to its mission and purpose. These characteristics enabled Rehoboth Christian School to deliver outstanding education to close out the 2019-20 school year, and these same qualities will be on full display for all the students and families come the fall.